Hi all, today is the day! I have a 18 lb turkey in my mini. At the 1 1/2 hour mark IT is at 90 degrees. Mini is cruising at 240 with all vents wide open. I may pull the clay diffuser and put in the steamer plate to get the temp up a bit.

That's a large mass of cold meat for the mini. Anytime I do something large like that in the mini I'll ramp the temp up a good 30 degrees above my targeted out temp. It's been my experience that's how much it's going to drop once the meat is in there. I think you did good starting with the clay diffuser in. I say that because it appears you had the bird standing on a lower rack position. Had you gone with the steamer or without for the entire smoke you might have risked burning the lower portions of the bird. The largest turkey I have done in the mini was 12 pounds, whole it for on the upper rack and I did use only the diffuser. Ran the mini at 325. Skin was not quite crispy, but not bad.

I did not brine since it already had a solution. I used a poultry rub that I had in my cabinet. I did inject with creole butter.

I do recommend going with a smaller bird that was the smallest one I had so I figured I would give it a shot. I just wanted to see what the mini could do. I am pretty sure the upper part of the chamber runs hotter than down at the base as the top of the bird was a little over cooked.

As far a being moist the juices poured out when I cut it open Also the skin was very rubbery. My propane smoker does a better job because I can crank the heat up in that.